The Night Laura Lost Her Cool and I Found Mine

The vacation on the coast lasted ten days. Ten days with Laura without having to hide ourselves, without the usual noise, without having to separate our hands whenever someone looked at us strangely. We went out walking along the promenade with our arms around each other, went into bars without asking permission with our eyes, and there was something about it—in that normality we should never have had to fight for—that made me love her more.

That particular night, we went out for a drink. Laura was wearing a tight black strappy dress that outlined every curve. I had on a short sand-colored dress that suited my skin tone. We went into the bar on the corner by the beach, liked the dark wooden counter, and sat down on the stools. We were distracted, looking at the cocktail menu and laughing about something I no longer remember, when I noticed that a couple of guys in the back couldn't take their eyes off us.

I didn't care. I'm the calmer one of the two.

A guy approached, polite in manner but not so much in intent:

—Hi, can I sit here with my friends?

Laura raised an eyebrow, took my hand, and placed it on the counter. We were wearing the rings we'd given each other the year before.

—Oh, sorry—he said, and left.

The bartender, a woman with her dreadlocks tied up and the smile of someone who'd already seen everything, came over as she served us.

—Do you know that when you came in, every man at the bar fixed his eyes on you? Neither of you even noticed.

—No, not at all—I said, laughing.

—You're a couple, right?

—Yes—we answered almost at the same time.

She nodded with the expression of someone who'd been right from the start.

—When men see something they like, they go blind to everything else. Then they're surprised when they aren't welcome.

The three of us laughed. We ordered our drinks, settled in, and the night took on that slow, pleasant rhythm vacations have when there's nothing you have to get done.

***

It didn't last.

A male voice came from behind us, in the tone of someone accustomed to being obeyed:

—Hey, girls, you can't be here.

I felt Laura tense beside me before I had processed what I'd heard. I glanced at her. Her jaw was clenched.

She called the bartender over with a sharp gesture:

—Excuse me, is there any problem with us sitting here?

—None.

Laura turned around slowly. The guy was tall, with a bored face, and carried that unshakable conviction of someone who believed he was automatically right.

—Then—Laura said, in a voice I recognized, the one she used when she'd already made up her mind—who the hell asked you? Do you want me to get up, or would you rather I break your nose?

He didn't get the chance to answer. Two security guards appeared out of nowhere and escorted him toward the door. He tried to say something as they took him out, but he left without making a scene.

I stood up, took Laura by the arm, and spoke close to her ear:

—It's over, love. It's all right.

The bartender brought us a glass of water without our asking.

We stayed a while longer. We finished our drinks slowly, paid, and left. Laura walked quickly, her shoulders tense, her purse clutched tightly against her body.

***

When we got to the apartment, she left her purse on the floor—not on the chair where she always put it—and collapsed onto the couch. She let out a long, loaded string of curses that perfectly summed up how she felt.

I sat down beside her. I didn't say anything at first. I placed a hand on her knee.

—I didn't like it either—I said afterward. But you can't go through life throwing punches, Laura.

—Why not?—She looked straight at me.—Why do we have to put up with it?

—I'm not telling you to put up with it. I'm telling you that if you make a scene, they'll take you away. Not him.

She closed her eyes. They were damp.

—It drives me crazy—she said more softly. We don't bother anyone. We don't do anything to anyone. And yet.

—I know.

—I know you know.—She paused.—I'm sorry.

—There's nothing to apologize for.

I hugged her. I stroked her hair, which smelled of the coconut cream she used in summer. I felt her body gradually relaxing, her breathing easing.

—You're the only one who can calm me down—she said against my neck. With anyone else, I'd be out on the street looking for trouble.

—I know—I said, laughing. That's why I'm here.

She pulled back a little to look at me. She had that expression I knew by heart, the one that came before something.

She kissed me. Long and deep, with both hands on my face. She pushed her tongue into my mouth without asking, and I slowly bit it, tugging it outward with my teeth. I felt a low growl escape her, one of those sounds she made when she started getting wet between her panties.

***

I stood up and, without saying a word, took off my dress. I wasn't wearing a bra. I stood in front of her in my panties and looked at her. I ran my hands over my tits, pinched my nipples until they grew hard and dark, and lowered one hand to the fabric of my panties so she could clearly see where I wanted her to look.

It took Laura exactly two seconds to understand.

She pushed me down onto the couch with a gentle but determined shove. She threw herself on top of me fully clothed and kissed my mouth, biting my lower lip and tugging on it. She moved down my neck, licking me and leaving a trail of cool saliva, and when she reached my tits, she took one entire nipple into her mouth and sucked hard, her cheeks hollow. Then the other. She went from one to the other, biting my nipples with her teeth, while I arched my back, seeking her mouth.

—You've got such delicious tits, you slut—she said against my skin, then licked from my sternum to my navel.

She kept moving down. She kissed my navel, slipped her tongue inside it, and when she reached my panties, she pushed them aside with two fingers without taking them all the way off. She opened the lips of my cunt with her thumb and forefinger and spent a second looking at me there, breathing over me.

—You're already soaking wet.

—Stop looking and suck me.

She laughed and gave me one long lick, from bottom to top, flat and slow, gathering up everything that was already dripping from me. She began slowly, circling my folds, slipping the tip of her tongue into my entrance, going up to my clitoris and back down again. Then she stopped playing and latched onto it, the tip of my clitoris, sucking with her lips sealed around it while moving her tongue in tight circles. I tangled my fingers in her hair and pressed her head against me without a trace of shame.

—That's it, that's it, don't stop.

She pushed two fingers inside me at once, all the way in, and began curling them upward while she kept sucking my clitoris. I felt them moving in and out, making that wet sound I go crazy listening to. She alternated the pressure of her tongue with the rhythm of her fingers with a precision that made me lose track of my thoughts. I moved my hips against her face, riding her mouth, feeling everything gathering in my lower belly.

I came with a shudder that ran from my legs to the nape of my neck. I squeezed her head between my thighs and screamed something I didn't even understand myself. She didn't let go, continuing to suck me slowly while my clitoris throbbed in her mouth, drawing out my final spasms.

When I lifted my head, she was smiling, her face shining with me from nose to chin.

—Let's go to bed—I said.

***

In the bedroom, I took off my panties and threw them on the floor. I got on all fours at the edge of the bed, my back to her, my knees spread wide and my face turned sideways against the pillow. I knew perfectly well what I was showing her.

Laura knows how to read me. She knows what I need before I say it, and she also knows that when I get like this, it's because I'm giving her something: permission to let go, to use that space between us where neither of us has to hold anything back.

I heard her undress. I heard her open the drawer, take out the harness, and fasten the straps around her hips. When she turned and the black silicone cock hung between her legs, a moan escaped me just from looking at it. I felt her hand on my lower back, tracing my spine, moving down to grip my hips and dig her fingers in.

—Look at you—she said. All open for me.

She spat on my cunt and spread it with two fingers, mixing it with what I already had there. Then she ran the head of the harness over my lips from top to bottom without putting it in, until I pushed my hips backward, seeking her.

—Put it in me now.

—Ask properly.

—Put it in me, Laura, please.

She began to push it inside me slowly, little by little, and I breathed deeply, opening my knees wider to take it. I felt it entering inch by inch, stretching me. When it was fully inside, her hips pressed against my ass, she stayed still for a moment, letting me feel how full I was. I moved my hips backward, asking her to continue.

She did. She pulled it almost all the way out and drove it back in in one thrust, all the way to the hilt, and I screamed into the pillow. Again. Again. Her movements grew faster, deeper, each thrust slamming her hips against my ass, making the sound of skin against skin that filled the entire room. I breathed with my mouth open, my face buried in the pillow, my tits shaking forward and backward with every thrust.

—You like it this way, don't you?—she said between gasps, grabbing my hair and pulling my head back.—Having me fuck you good and hard.

—Yes, like that, harder.

She gave it to me harder. She drove it all the way in with every thrust, without giving me a moment's respite. With one hand I reached down and began masturbating at the same time, rubbing my clitoris in quick circles while she kept fucking me from behind. Laura's other hand sank into the nape of my neck, pressing my face against the pillow as she continued pounding my ass with her hips.

—Come—she told me. Come with my cock inside you.

And I came. Everything tightened around the harness, my cunt contracting in spasms she could feel through the silicone, and a long, animal sound escaped me, one I didn't fully control. My legs were shaking so badly I would have fallen if she hadn't been holding my hips.

She pulled out slowly, and I felt the emptiness. I lay on my back, exhausted in the best possible way. My own fluids ran down the inside of my thigh, mixed with her saliva. The harness was still on, gleaming and dripping with my wetness.

She looked down at me, breathing hard, and undid the straps in two movements. She lay down beside me, naked, and kissed my temple.

—Are you all right?—she asked.

—Perfectly.

—I was a little rough.

—Laura.—I took her hand and lowered it to my cunt so she could feel how soaked I still was.—I got on all fours because I wanted to. Do you understand that?

She nodded, but I could see there was still something in her eyes. She slipped two fingers inside me, slowly, almost tenderly, and moved them gently while looking at me.

—I know you—I said, my voice broken. I know when you need to let something out. And I needed it too. There's nothing to apologize for.

—How do you manage to be so sure?

—Practice—I said, and we both laughed, her fingers still inside me.

She hugged me tightly, settled against my neck, and stroked my hair until we both lay still.

***

The vacation continued. Days at the beach, sleeping late, walking without hurrying. The night at the bar fell behind us, as things do when they have nothing more to teach you.

On the thirtieth, the last day before we returned, we were finishing packing our suitcases when my phone rang. It was a message from Camila, Laura's sister.

«Hi Valeria, are you two all right? Are you coming back tomorrow? That way we can arrange something for my sister's birthday.»

I stared at the screen.

My sister's birthday. The thirty-first. Tomorrow.

I went to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and processed it in silence. Ten days on the coast. Ten days with Laura. And at no point had we talked about birthdays. It was as if living together in that little apartment had suspended time.

What am I going to do? We're at the beach. I didn't buy anything.

I came out of the bathroom with a blank expression.

—Are you all right?—Laura asked me as she folded a shirt.

—Yes, yes—I said. Do you want to go to the beach for a little longer before it gets dark?

***

We sat on the sand, looking out at the water. My mind was somewhere else, and Laura realized it before I opened my mouth.

—What happened?

—Nothing bad.

—That's not an answer.

I looked at her. She knew me far too well for me to lie to her.

—Listen—I said. Is your birthday tomorrow?

She was silent for a second.

—I don't know. I've lost track of the days.

—Tomorrow is the thirty-first.

—Oh.—She paused. Then she laughed.—Yes, it's my birthday.

—And you're telling me just like that, as if it were nothing?

—And why are you saying it as if it were a catastrophe?

—Because I didn't buy you anything, Laura. We're at the beach. You never told me when your birthday was. I never told you mine, either. How is it possible that in all this time we never had that conversation?

She laughed even harder. That laugh of hers that starts slowly and ends with her whole body.

—We're a disaster—she said.

—There's nothing funny about it.

—It's the funniest thing in the world.—She took my hand.—Look, tomorrow before we leave, we'll go out, find something, you can buy it if you want, have something nice to drink, and that's it. I don't need anything else.

—I wanted to surprise you.

—You surprise me every day already.—She kissed my cheek.—And when's your birthday?

—February fourteenth.

Her eyes widened.

—Valentine's Day. You're a walking cliché.

—I know. And you love me anyway.

—I love you anyway. We're both Aquarians, you realize? Neither of us has both feet on the ground.

—That's why we work—I said.

***

The next day we went out early. We wandered through the shop windows along the coastal promenade without hurrying. In a small boutique, Laura found a white linen outfit—a pair of trousers and a blouse—that fit her perfectly. She let me pay without protesting too much, which was saying something.

While she waited for it to be wrapped, I slipped next door to the lingerie shop for a moment. In the window was a set that stopped me: a black bra and panties with lace trim, along with a matching garter belt. I bought it without thinking too hard. It wasn't exactly for her. It was for both of us.

I went back to the bar on the corner where we'd sat waiting. She looked at the bag.

—What did you buy?

—Nothing.

—Valeria.

—For me. You'll see.

She looked at me with the smile that meant she already knew everything, even though she knew nothing.

We stopped at a pastry shop and bought something sweet for the road. That night we finished packing our suitcases, ate a light snack, and got into bed early. We didn't fuck. We just held each other and talked about unimportant things until the conversation faded on its own, like a candle burning down to nothing.

***

I woke up before her. Light filtered thinly through the blinds.

I got up quietly. I took the lingerie set from my bag and put it on in the bathroom: the black lace-trimmed bra, the panties, the garter belt without stockings. I looked at myself in the mirror for a moment, adjusted my tits inside the cups until they sat high and proud, then ran my hand over my panties, pressing them against my cunt to leave the seam's imprint between my lips.

I made breakfast. Coffee, fruit, and the pastries from the shop on a plate. I carried everything to the bedroom on a tray.

Laura was sleeping on her side, her loose hair spread across the pillow. I sat on the edge of the bed and began kissing her slowly: her neck, her cheek, her temple.

She woke little by little. First she wrinkled her nose. Then she opened one eye.

She saw me.

She blinked once, twice. Her eyes traveled over the lingerie set, still half-asleep, taking their time. They stopped at the garter belt, the panties, then moved up her stomach to my tits pushed tightly into the bra.

—Happy birthday—I said softly.

A smile escaped her before she could hide it. She reached out and ran a hand up my thigh, slowly, until she hooked a finger into the garter belt's elastic and snapped it against my skin.

—You're impossible—she said, her voice still hoarse with sleep. Come here.

—Happy birthday—I repeated, climbing astride her and feeling her body wake beneath mine.

She hugged me without getting up, both hands on my ass, squeezing it over my panties and pulling me toward her in bed. The tray remained on the nightstand. Breakfast could wait.

Outside, the sun was already high, and the sea made the sound vacations have when they aren't quite over yet.